Thursday, April 26, 2018

Watching the
fulminations about the West Indian generation who came to Britain in
the 1950’s and subsequently found that they were not as welcome as
they either thought or were promised, brings to mind some experiences
of mine.

For, I have the same
bit of paper one of the victims was proudly clutching on TV last
evening. It resides in my passport and except for its size it is
identical. It’s dated 9 June 1975. It’s almost exactly like the
TV one – except it is on A5 paper, not A4 (saving money in 1975?)

I dug out my old
passport. On 8 June 1974 I entered the UK having debarked from the
QE II at Southampton. My passport stamp says I have leave to enter
the UK for two months. On 16 July I have another stamp which says my
leave to remain will expire on 8 June 1975 – I confess I do not
remember how I got that stamp. Finally I have a stamp from the Home
Office on 9 Jun 1975 saying that the time limit to enter the UK is
hereby removed.

Am I of the Windrush
generation? No. I am neither black nor West Indian. The cut-off
date for Windrush migrants, as reported in the press is 1974. I’m
just a “legal” immigrant.

How did all this
happen?

Well, in 1974 I
graduated from Central Missouri State University and wanted to begin
my teaching career. At the same time my wife was pregnant with our
oldest son – now over 40. We decided to return to her country of
origin. So, we did. At about that time there was a furore in the
press regarding wives of British men who had come to the UK to join
their husbands.

Was not what’s
good for the goose, good for the gander? Eventually the government
agreed and therefore husbands of British women were accorded the same
rights. Hence my 9 June 75 passport stamp. Clear?

In the intervening
years I had no problems citizenship-wise. I had vacations in the
USA. I traveled on the continent. I went through immigration and
customs without problems.

Once I lost my Home
Office letter. Luckily, I arrived back at Heathrow from the US on
the first plane to land that morning. Happy Days! I grabbed my
luggage and rocked up to Immigration with no queue in sight! Very
Happy Days! Because it was so early, I half expected to be waved on
my way. No. The immigration officer quizzed me: where are you
going? Norwich. Why? I live there. How long? 20-odd years. How
am I supposed t know that? Damn it I lost my letter (soto voce)
BTW- We had an
Australian lady here who was stuck for weeks! Come on, give me a
break, please? Okay, on your way. Lucky. I wonder how I might have
fared if I had a black face? (I found the letter eventually and it is now safe again in my passport)

Is
it stretching it to assume that the Windrush migrants were/are having
so many problems because they are black? I don’t think so.

This
is a result of government policy and TRUE BRIT. We must guard our
borders! Why? We must be wary of strangers/foreigners. The WOGS
start at Calais. This government – and to be fair – previous
governments of all parties - have created an atmosphere where the
Windrush migrants became easy targets. Immigration Officers believed
they were carrying out government policy by making it as difficult as
possible for black people to enter the homeland. What TOSH.

In
his grave, and celebrating the Rivers of Blood speech he made 50
years ago, Enoch Powell must be having a good laugh at the mess he
helped to create. The sooner the government and the people move on
from the completely ridiculous idea that the whole world is laying
siege to Britain the sooner we might get some compassion and sense
into the problem.

Wednesday, March 07, 2018

Now, I am the first
to admit that I am functionally economically illiterate. I must
point out that this in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. After
all even though there is a loud and boisterous group who like to
pretend that economics is a science, most people recognize that
economics is to science as bookmaking is to wealth. The systems
involved in each are, at best, enlightened guesswork and at worse
ill-informed charlatanism.

I have long had an
economic plan. This plan has been the subject of ridicule and
approbation from all sides.

By way of
illustration: it resembles my famous cherry-pie mathematics theory.
Cherry-pie maths postulates what happens when you apply some
mathematical principles to a cherry pie. For example, if you add one
cherry pie to another cherry pie you get two cherry pies. OK?

Now if your multiply
instead of add you get something different, so the mathematicians
tell us. Where I come from, adding is like multiplying. Add two
things together you get more. Multiply two things together you get
more. (Like rabbits for example or cherry pies)

Therefore when the
mathematicians tell you that 1x1 = 1 – hey! not where I come from!
IF you multiply 1 cherry pie x another cherry pie – the maths genii
say you get one cherry pie. Crazy – what ever happened to the law
of conservation of mass and energy? Where did the rest of the pie go
to?

No, multiplying one
cherry pie by another cherry pie means you get two pies – not one!

Similarly, if you
ask maths guys they will tell you that multiplying two negative
numbers together creates a positive sum. So -10 x -10
= 100. Yeah, right.

In
the real world if I go to Barclays bank and borrow £1000 pounds –
go next door to HSBC borrow another £1000 and then ask them to
multiply my borrowings together and send me the cheque for 1 000 000,
they just won’t do it! (Go
ahead, try it and see, but be prepared to be laughed at!)

Result:
my cherry-pie maths is rooted in the real world. Economics is
rooted in the mathematical world. And, the two rarely meet - and if
they do it is usually with
an
earth-shattering collision.

How
does this fit with my plan to exploit the economists? Simples.

Take
as an example the National Lottery. Since it’s inception in
November of 1994, the National Lottery has produced more than 4,750
millionaires. Gosh, that seems a lot – especially since I’m not
one of them! Not only is
it a lot of winners: it is also a lot of money. And, here is the
important point: it (apparently) does not cause inflation – or
indeed any other blip in the economic life of the nation. This
could be because it is essentially self-financing – indeed there is
money left over to give to good causes. In actuality the National
Lottery is a wealth redistribution vehicle. It takes money from
millions of citizens and gives it to a few.

I
propose something similar. But, why not just cut out the middle man and give money directly to the public. There are about 27 million
households in the UK.

For 2015/16, the overall NHS budget was around £116.4 billion.
That’s about 5000 per year per household. The government seems
content to fund this.. Of course, they could just give every
household £ 5 000 and say you get your own healthcare – use it to
buy health insurance for example. By
way of comparison: How much does the US spend on healthcare per
person?

$10,345
per person.

So,
here in the UK we are content to let the government redistribute
wealth through the NHS.

Why
not let the government do this on an industrial scale?

My
plan: the Chancellor writes to all 27 million households and tells
them that on January 1, 2019 he is going to deposit 1 million pounds
in their bank account. He explains that if asked he will, of course,
deny this. All you have to do is provide the Inland Revenue with
your bank account details and on Jan first the money will be
deposited. The only proviso, if you haven’t spent the money by Jan
5 he will take it back.

I
figure that 5-10 million households will think it’s a hoax and do
nothing. Another 5-10 million will lose the letter, or forget or be
so drunk after New Year they just fail to do anything. So, 10
million folks will get the million and spend it (oh, yeah, one more
proviso). You can spend it either to pay off your debts or buy
stocks, shares or bonds. Or a combination of either.

The
result:
the total cost
to the exchequer will be about the
same as the annual spend
on the NHS.

10
million households will no longer have a mortgage payment to find
every month. Those 10 million will also own most of the shares in
VW, GM, US Steel and South Africa’s diamond industry.

And,
here’s the best bit, they will have paid for these non-perishable
assets with mostly worthless paper currency, for the pound will sink
like a rock. No real matter – that’s why only non-perishable
assets are allowed. Makes no difference if the pound in your pocket
is worthless, if you own real assets. Works
for me. Also, the best bit is the economists will hate it!

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

If nothing else,
Brexit has provided endless opportunities for examining the concept
of True Brit.

For those with short
memories let me explain. The True Brit believers hold these truths
to be self-evident: Britain is the greatest country in the world;
the rest of the world is both envious of Britain and at the same time
plotting our downfall (Johnny Foreigner can not be trusted and WOGS
begin at Calais); the British system of Parliamentary democracy
(I'll say democracy though it is really an autocracy) is the best
form of government and the envy of the world; British justice is far
better than any other (only in the USA would the people elect their
judges and in the EU the Court of Human Rights is to be mistrusted –
if not downright dismissed as a plot to foil British ambitions); The
NHS is the nearest thing to a national religion and provides not only
universal healthcare but also the force that unifies the nation; and
Britain’ s armed forces are the envy of the world and far superior
to those of any other nation.

There’s a good
place to start. Britain does have an enviable historical record on
the military front. But, the key word here is “historical”. The
fact is: not since about 1943 has Britain been able to hold its own
against another world power. And that was chiefly because of the
finance provided by the USA. Unfortunately, no-one in Britain
believes this and politicians and population cling hysterically to
the notion of Britain’s military might. Except in the realm of
nuclear warheads, Britain is a third or fourth rate military force.
Were it not for the stubbornness of the UK establishment this fact
would be more widely accepted and some tangible benefits could be
accrued on the defence front which might go a long way to solving
some other, more pressing problems.

Take Trident for
example. Governments of all persuasions have clung dogmatically to
the idea of a British independent nuclear deterrent. This is in
spite of the fact that it is a myth. Firstly is there a scenario
where the UK could launch a nuclear strike on its own against an
aggressor? Beyond unlikely!

Secondly,
whilst the warheads may indeed be British, the submarine’s
missiles are not. They are American. Would
the US stand by and allow its missiles to be used against its wishes?
Sorry, it’s Suez all over again! Conclusion: there is
no real independent UK nuclear deterrent.
So, why persist with the myth? Simples – it just
reinforces the True Brit myth.

What about the conventional forces? Again it soothes the British
psyche to imagine that they have the best Army, Navy and Air Force.
True Brit is alive and well as long as the politicians can con the
public into believing this for it makes the public happy to cough up
billions on the wasted and useless defence mechanism that is Trident.
(Actually, more and more mainstream politicians and commentators are
beginning to see this and speak publicly about this waste of national
resources. )

Just this week we find that the Royal Marines, current size 7020, is
set to shrink by another 2000 marines.. The current size of the
Army is about 80 000. The RAF has about 35 000 personnel. The Navy
has 33 000 with 20 of the commissioned vessels being major surface
combatants (six guided missile destroyers, 13 frigates and one
aircraft carrier) and 10 are nuclear-powered submarines (four
ballistic missile submarines and six fleet submarines). The fact is
the UK has forces totally inadequate for the very small tasks they
might be expected to do.

The really interesting part of this sorry saga is that the newspapers
are full of stories like this. The one they particularly “like”
is the “plan” by the EU to form a European Army. The media,
politicians and the public are aghast and horrified! Why? True
Brit strikes again. Pointing out that the UK has been
co-operating with other EU counties in NATO for a very long time does
nothing to assuage True Brit. Equating this long-standing
co-operation with the foundation of an EU Army brings gasps of
incredulity.

Moving on to another True Brit maxim: the NHS, of course, even
causes Donald Trump to get in the news – and he doesn’t need much
of an excuse to seek news opportunities I hear you say! The Donald
jumped on the bandwagon by insisting the problems in the NHS are
caused by the ideological wedding of a socialistic healthcare system
to the failing British economy.

Notwithstanding the usual hyperbolic balderdash pedalled by the
Donald, there is no doubt that the NHS is the nearest thing the UK
has to a national religion any more (even though there is a real
national religion in the Church of England). It is a True Brit maxim
that the NHS is the envy of the world.

Then we have to add gun control to the list. The UK in general and
the media in particular are obsessed by guns and gun control. They
have no real understanding of the issues involved and the
difficulties which need to be overcome. So, when POTUS finally moves
a bit towards some rational, achievable measures to help, the outcry
barely abates. It’s the truth that everyone says they like to mind
their own business but no-one really means it. They would much
rather everyone simply adopt their prejudices. True Brit loves to
tell everyone else what to do. True Brit has all the answers. Blah.
Blah, blah!

Sunday, February 11, 2018

People (including
me) sometimes sit at their computers and merrily type comments which
seem innocuous or possibly humorous to them – but to other people
they may be very thoughtless, offensive or downright silly. For that
reason, I almost never use Facebook to express opinions on
controversial topics – especially politics.

I was telling you
about those two characters in my family, my nephew Brent (Ruthanne’s
boy) and my nephew Rusty (son of my cousin Virginia). They are from
the same general gene pool - but Brent is a bit to the right of Adolf
Hitler, Barry Goldwater (remember both you and I supported him in
64!) and Attila the Hun. Rusty, on the other hand, makes Bernie
Sanders, Che Guevara and Karl Marx look like arch-conservatives.
Needless to say when these two nutters get to arguing (and I use the
term “arguing” very loosely) on Facebook it is very ugly – but
at the same time entertaining – if you like watching train wrecks
that is. Me, I just watch what they age doing and occasionally chip
in with something like – “hey, the answers are not usually to be
found in black and white – it’s the shades of grey where you are
more likely to find some sense”.

Needless to say,
they ignore me, mostly.

I think it’s a
product of age. When you get old youngsters just think you have lost
it and should shuffle off the mortal coil quietly and shut up.
(Perhaps, they are right)

My tactic is to use
Facebook to look at photos of friends, family (particularly
grandchildren) and keep track of the Chiefs and the Royals.
(Interestingly, you can have a good, quality discussion with both
Brent and Rusty about sport, Chiefs and Royals style – a topic we
all agree on!!)

If I find the urge
to spout off I use my blog. That way if anyone is actually
interested in my opinion they have to navigate to the blog – i.e.
it’s not on Facebook where almost anyone can see it. Seems
sensible to me.

Regarding our
President. I absolutely agree that every President belongs to the
whole country, not just those who voted for him or only to those who
share his opinions. We are all free to agree with him on matters of
policy or to take another stance. Therefore the office of President
deserves respect – not the actual office-holder.

Take “fake news”.
This seems to be a favourite of the President. And, he is in many
ways correct to point out that not everything has equal value out in
cyberspace. The problem is many folks now-a-days are getting their
“news” from Facebook and other non-verifiable sources.

The fact is there
are some facts!

For example you can
find people who believe Kennedy was shot by someone other than Lee
Harvey Oswald. (Polls often show that a majority of American people
support this idea) Most of the conspiracy theories are wrong, but
entertaining. So, should we stop folks from blogging about the
Kennedy assassination? No, of course not, everyone is entitled to
take a view and express an opinion.

A better example:
did the Russians try to influence the election of President Trump?
There seems to be some evidence, but is it conclusive. No, not yet.
And if they did, so what? Is it likely that significant numbers of
voters could be swayed by Russian propaganda? Not likely. But and
this is the important point – just like the Kennedy assassination,
if you think they did you are perfectly entitled to do so and it is
un-American to insist that those who hold that view are stupid, vile,
or trying to subvert the electoral process. What opponents should be
doing is finding facts to support their position, Same for the other
side. Here’s where “fake news” comes in – it seems that a
number of folks are not able to differentiate between some old bovine
faeces on Facebook and even the semblance of a reliable fact.

This is a big
problem.

I remember having an
argument not long ago with James (you know, tall guy – father of
Noam and Maya) about the Dutch Tulip Bulb speculation in the 17th
century. Most people think they know vaguely about this and use it
as an example of how things can get out of hand by speculation
(particularly in stocks and shares). To my chagrin, James turned out
to be more right than I. A classic example of “the problem ain’t
that folks are ignorant, it’s just that they know so damn much that
ain’t true”.

(By the way this is
another classic – most folks think it was Mark Twain who came up
with this – no it was Josh Billings – you can look it up its a
FACT)

Back to the bulbs.
It turns out that the speculation in tulips was greatly
over-estimated and many other factors led to the collapse of this
particular market, Again, there is a lot of stuff on Facebook and
the internet about Tulips – but you have to wade through the Bull
dust to find out any real facts.

Most folks seem to
have lost either the time or inclination to do this.

Likewise, folks can
easily find information which reinforces their crazy, mistaken ideas.
That don’t make it so!

Over this side of
the pond we have the Brexiteers and the Remoaners. They argue,
bicker and threaten each other with relish. They muster facts or
pseudo-facts with abandon. But, of course, they never get any closer
to agreement or understanding. Perhaps this penchant for
self-centred preoccupation is just in our genes?

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

I am a member of a
very small, very exclusive club – I like Gt Yarmouth, always have.
It has always seemed to me to be more a large village, rather than a
small town. (It is, actually, the third largest town in Norfolk)
When I lived near Yarmouth in the 1970’s the shopping trips were
always to Yarmouth and no shopping trip was ever complete without the
purchase of some chips from Yarmouth market. It’s good to know
that the market is still alive and well and the chip stalls remain
open (https://www.great-yarmouth.co.uk/shopping/market.aspx)

However, after only
a few months of shopping in Yarmouth I noticed a really odd thing
about the chip stalls on the market. They all sold their chips at
the same price. I expect they still do so today. It just seemed odd
that not one of the 10 or so chip stalls would cut their price to try
and get more custom.

Then again, Yarmouth
folk are funny, they will swear that the chips from their particular
favourite stall are the best. I was never hung up on this, I’d
just go for the one with the smallest queue.

But, where was the
competition? It was explained to me (dummy foreigner) that the
Yarmouth chips stalls, or more precisely the permits to run the chip
stalls, were like the Yarmouth version of Standard Oil, the
American Tobacco Company, the International Mercantile Marine
Company, and the match companies controlled by Ivar Kreuger, the
Match King. De Beers had a dominant role in the supply of diamonds.

Other trusts were
formed by several companies, such as the Motion Picture Patents
Company or Edison Trust which controlled the movie patents. Patents
were also important to the Bell Telephone Company, as indicated by
the massive litigation that came to be known as The Telephone Cases.
- Wikipedia

The Yarmouth chip
stalls were handed down within the family. No-one else could start a
chip stall or buy a chip stall and therefore provide some healthy
competition. Is it any wonder that all chips were the same price?

Back to Yarmouth.
In the 80’s the Gt Yarmouth Borough Council built the Marina
Centre. In a prime location on the sea front it was supposed to
breathe new life into the town and provide somewhere for the
beleaguered holiday-makers to go when it rained. It had a swimming
pool (with a wave machine), an indoor sports area and eateries all
under one roof. It cost some millions to build and the council
provided the money, or they borrowed it I can’t remember which. In
any event, instead of using the council’s own personnel to manage
the Marina Centre (they have a perfectly good Tourism and Leisure
section to this day), in their wisdom the GYBC (Gt Yarmouth Borough
Council) employed a management company (like Carillion?) to manage
the Marina Centre. The local paper, the Yarmouth Mercury, then ran
stories every week for years about how the Marina Centre lost money –
and lots of money – every year.

Strangely, it never
occurred to them to find out why the fee paid to the management
company almost exactly equalled the Marina Centre deficit.

It was easy really.
When the GYBC or any government body actually manages something
there is nowhere to pass the buck.

Yarmouth rate-payers
who had a poor Marina Centre experience would ring their borough
councillor and complain. The councillor would pick up the phone and
speak to the management company, The councillor would then be able
to tell his constituent that he had made the appropriate inquiries.
Nothing got done but the council could pass the buck. That’s what
they paid the management company for.

Sound familiar? It
ought to for that’s what has been happening since the 80’s –
not just in Yarmouth but everywhere. Companies like Carillion have
been paid to take the flak. The government talks and talks about
competition being a good thing, but works like hell to make sure it
doesn’t happen.

Only the NHS escapes the management company malaise. But, for how long? I'm sure the government would love to unload the NHS on to Carillion, and they would if they thought they could get away with it!

The government talks
and talks about how small businesses are the life-blood of the
economy, yet they dish out multi-million pound contracts to very
large companies which are no better than the robber-barons of old.
For Carillion read Standard Oil.

Take the ill-fated
and doomed NDR (the road to nowhere). When the Norfolk County
Council were looking for someone to build this white elephant, their
choice was limited at best. The contract was worth over 200 million
pounds. Now me, you and Paddy with a few shovels and spades cannot
build the NDR. Only a few companies have the resources which enable
them to bid for the contract. Where’s the competition? There is
no practical competition.

Eventually Balfour
Beatty got the contract – though they were a lot smarter than
Carillion (or maybe the NCC were a lot more stupid than the national
government?)

The point is
competition for these type of contracts is just a myth designed to
reassure the public and assuage the mega-morons in the Tory shires
(and line a fair amount of Tory pockets at the same time through
dividends and pension companies).

Only large companies
have the resources to take on large building projects. Only the
government has the resources to finance large building projects.
Only the government itself can provide competition for Carilllion or
Serco or uncle Tom Cobley and all.

Monday, January 08, 2018

An historic loss and
I watched the whole thing live courtesy of Sky Sports. Happy Days.
I almost wish I had had the flu and only had to read about it the
next day!

But no – like the
live-streaming of a train wreck – you just have to watch even when
you know the outcome is going to be a disaster.

UGLY: What was
that call?

Marcus Mariota
fumbled the football on the play, which Justin Houston recovered, but
it was ruled a stoppage of forward progress, which cannot be
challenged. This was the first of two questionable forward progress
calls on the evening.

The Titans kicked a
field goal to get on the board.

"Anyway that aside, I
have to say that these rules now a days are getting very complicated
and they are starting to pull at the fabric of the game. The forward
progress call where Mariota fumbled was egregious and atrocious. The
quarterback was standing still - the impact of the hit jarred the
football loose and the referee decided to call his forward progress
stopped - even though he was standing still looking downfield -
negating an obvious fumble. The definition of a sack fumble has now
been called into question. Calls like this should never happen and
yet are becoming routine and familiar. These calls are absurd and way
overcomplicated. So I wanted to open a discussion and see what people
think should be done to stop this lunacy of calls. Instead of a rant
I thought it may be constructive to have a discussion about solutions
to a problem rather than being pissed that we follow the biggest
choke artists in sports. Hence this post.”

“The odd thing was
– at half time with the score 21-3 and I was thinking that if we
can get a touchdown on the next possession maybe we can rest some of
the starters for next week’s encounter with the Steelers. (Talk
about some rose-coloured lenses).

Then the wheels not
only came off but went rolling off indifferent directions. The
running the ball plan was abandoned (it wasn’t working anyway).
The injuries piled up (two were extremely critical – Travis Kelce
and Chris Jones). The defense began to show their true form (the
Greeks have a word for it “pathos”). Finally, Alex Smith (in
what will surely be his last game in red) began to look confused and
shell-shocked, as if “surely this can’t happen again!” Oh, yes
it can and it did, Alex.

At the end of the
day the truth is the Chiefs lost because they did not make enough
good plays on either offence or defence. This self-evident analysis
is only useful going forward if it forms the basis for progress.

Let’s start with
the offence: where, at least, there were some bright sparks.

Alex Smith has been
a great servant to the franchise, but next year he is just trade
bait. Patrick Mahomes will be the QB and the Chiefs cannot afford to
have Alex as a back-up. He goes for either high draft picks or a
quality player which fills a need. We have the rushing leader in
Kareem Hunt. That should be enough! No, it is not. In he
Titans game, he was generally ineffective, whilst a much leas
talented back got the glory for the Titans by pounding the Chiefs
D-line. We could use a real pounder as compliment to Hunt. At Tight
end we have Travis Kelce and when he got injured the game was lost.
Demetrius Harris and Orson Charles are poor, and very poor
respectively substitutes. The much talked-about Chiefs three tight
end offence was shown to be nonsense. We need another proven tight
end via the draft or free agency. The O-line has been poor all
season. Some good games have only masked the inadequacies. Upgrades
are required across the board. You simply cannot have a rookie QB
with a poor O-line and a one-dimensional running game. The core of
the problem is the receiving corps. Alex has been hampered all
season by a lack of quality receivers to throw to. Mahomes will need
proven NFL receivers and some top draft picks to come in and
challenge for starting spots. The Chiefs have been making do with
Tyreek Hill – who is not really a wide-receiver at all! Getting in
some real big-bodied wide-outs who can catch the ball is the number
one priority!

Moving on to Special
Teams. What a disappointment. In the most critical game of the
season they made one play – a fumble recovery on a punt. Result:
no points. The Butt Kicker missed a chip shot. Shame to blame him
but it comes with the job. He makes it and we probably win. Shame
because he is very good and will have the job next season. Dustin
Colquitt will be a free agent and may go. I can see a low draft pick
being used on the next Chiefs career punter.

The Chiefs defense
is overall graded at about D or C- at best. D-line needs help and
players who could help are not on the roster. LB’s are D at best.
Help! Help! The secondary is solid but needs another quality
cornerback and a safety (even if Eric Berry returns and is in his old
form.)

There are no
mysteries here. You can call it a rebuilding year or a revamping
year or a treading water exercise, call it what you will. Problem is
almost every other team will be looking for the same things!

Still, until these
issues are addressed and solved the next play-off win is a mirage in
the distance.

Let’s
start at the end. Jeremy Clarkson is nothing if not controversial
and somewhat amusing. So,when he picks on that icon, Sir David
Attenborough, he must be on shaky ground. Now throw in some whales
(everybody loves whales) and he on the proverbial hiding to nothing,
surely? Not quite. His point is that David is making some very
beautiful programmes about the sea and he need not take every
opportunity to enhance his Eco-warrior credentials. Jeremy’s
credo: “I don’t want to sell my Range Rover because some coral
is picky about sea temperatures”.

He’s
so amazingly wrong it takes the breath away that he is allowed a
mouthpiece to spout such drivel. The sea is at our mercy and we are
not doing it very much good at the moment. Come to think of it we
have been exploiting the sea for so many generations it is has become
just part of the Homo sapiens culture. No amount of Attenborough is
likely to stop it, either. Find another topic, Clarkson.

Hell
Toupee: mothers cause male baldness

Crikey,
I’ve been saying this for years! it’s all in the female hormones.
A study has found that the most important genes controlling hair
loss are on the X chromosome – which men get from their mothers.
The real bad news: baldness is linked to a higher risk of heart
disease. (Mal says, if that’s so how come bald men have not died
out of the gene pool by natural selection?)

It’s
time to concrete over Oxfordshire or we could just curb immigration

Ron
Liddle’s “editorial” (and I use the term very loosely), makes
for entertaining, if not enlightening, reading. His point is that if
only we stopped immigration (no guessing from where we would get
staff for the NHS – just as an example) letting in the number of
immigrants each year equal to a city the size of Newcastle; we would
have no housing shortage or problem at all.

This
is one of those simplistic analyses that some folks are so fond of
(Journalists mostly – and bloggers). I was surprised to see that
Ron had joined the ranks of the NIMBY BRIGADE.

Ron
explains: “. . . the government had identified an area ripe for
development: the Cambridge, Milton Keynes, Oxford corridor. Up to a
million homes there. I was unaware there was a corridor between
Cambridge and Oxford. I thought between the two cities lay
Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and a bit of Buckinghamshire. . . but to
the government it’s just a corridor.”

Ron
misses the point. This corridor is not just green and pleasant land,
it’s the heart of England (at least the South-east) it’s where
people would like to live – if only they could afford to.

Which
brings me neatly to the lack of affordable housing. I’ll just use
Wroxham as the example. Here we have about 1000 new homes being
built within a five mile radius. Go as far as Rackheath and you can
add another 2000. What no-one ever explains is - who are the people
who are buying these homes? They are the the product of “of our
uncontrolled and unsustainable immigration, which the government
vowed to sort out but has been useless in doing so.” That’s what
Ron says.

OK,
so very poor, unskilled, rapacious and probably dirty immigrants are
buying up our new homes in Wroxham.

Yea,
right!

The
more usual explanation is that people who are moving out of London
fuel the East Anglian house price inflation. There is some truth in
this. But a million? Year on year? Balderdash!

This
time the government is right. More homes have to be built. Now.
And lots of them. Ron is full of it. And it smells.

Trump
rejects being Man of the Year – probably

No
edition of the Sunday Times would be complete, of course, without a
lets-take-the-piss-out-of-Donald-Trump story. This one is just too
funny!

Apparently
tennis star Andy Murray took to Twitter to claim that the BBC was
PROBABLY going to name him as Sports Personality of the Year
mimicking Trump’s refusal to commit to the idea that Time Magazine
might name bestow upon him the title of Man of the Year.

There
is a serious side to this. I was watching the Archbishop of
Canterbury squirming when he was asked if he would meet with Trump
when he visits the UK. He eventually agreed that Trump is an idiot.
He then struggled to explain how Trump could possibly attract such
support from avowedly Christian fundamentalists in the USA. The poor
old Archbish just gave up!

Love
it!

Inmates
become Top Chefs from doing porridge

I
honestly thought that it was April 1st.

Nope.
As part of their rehabilitation, inmates at HMP Style, HMP Cardiff
and HMP High Down beat 134 other restaurants to the title of best
restaurant. Prisoners nearing the end of their sentences train to
become chefs and produce Michelin star-rated food. Folks queue up to
sample their fare.

A
three
course meal at HMP Style costs £34. The waitress has an NVQ Level
Two in professional cookery.

No
kidding.

DNA
test curbs newts’ power to stop new homes

You
can’t keep homes off the menu (apologies to HMP Style)

Hurray!
Some bright spark has just realised that you could use a DNA test to
find out if any Great Crested Newts are in a particular pond.

Fantastic,
I hear you scream!

No,
seriously,this is a serious problem for house builders. These newts
are a protected species and all the NIMBYS have to do to clog up the
house-building works is claim there might be newts in the vicinity
and they must be protected.

This
simple test, devised by Natural England, will show if newts are
present of not. Bugger me, said a NIMBY spokesperson. (Actually, I
made that last bit up!) The Home Builders Federation said it
welcomed the new approach. (You bet your sweet bippy they did!)

Dear
Santa Claus: Fido wants cologne an beer this year

England
is a nation of dog-lovers. The pooches are catered for extensively.

(before
we go on I must declare an interest – I walk the dog and I have a
handy holder attached to her lead (leash) which holds small plastic
bags in which to place any doggy poo that ensues. I had a great
idea! Why not make, market and sell doggy-poo-bags which are
recyclable? At present the doggy bins are emptied and the contents
go to landfill (as far as I can ascertain). Recyclable bags would
produce compost which could be sold (even if not in the UK, for
heaven’s sake, surely somebody would buy it!). Yet another great
Mal idea not taken up)

This
year for Christmas you can purchase: Pawsecco, beer and Christmas
jumpers for your dog. Tesco tells us that sales of festive stuff for
pets has increased four-fold. You will be able to purchase a Luke
Skywalker lead which lights up like a light-sabre. Your can buy
Barbour cologne for dogs (no Mabel I am not making this up, honest!)
Christmas gingerbread biscuits for dogs at Waitrose are available at
£19.95. Aldi is selling candy canes to hang from the tree – made
from rawhide bones.

A
spokesperson said, “People who do not have pets might think this is
a bit strange.” What, only a bit! (I tell you they are not saving
all the best April Fools stories for April.)

Tube
Panic Fight misheard as fire

In
the News in Brief section we learn that the chaos in central London
the other day was just a misunderstanding. A bad case of Chinese
whispers on the tube platform caused the panic. Someone shouted
“fight” when two lads squared up to each other and by the time it
was relayed down the platform “fight” had become “fire” and
someone hit the alarm. (You could not make it up – but then again
perhaps you could. The most interesting part of the saga was how Sky
News (a 24 hour news channel) tried desperately to make a story out
for this for a full hour and seemed somewhat disappointed there was
no terrorist threat in the end.)

Kungfu
Mandarins get set for Brexit brawls

Maybe
Sunday was a a particularly slow news day? Fears that the
Brexit-loving public might cut up rough with the perceived Remoaners
in Whitehall the Department for Exiting the EU is offering
self-defence classes to its staff.

(any
chance they might just cancel Brexit instead? I thought not
-otherwise you would not need a Department for Exiting the EU at all)

Brexit
Divorce Bill to be Kept Secret

On
the very same topic, it appears that the final bill for getting out
of the EU will not be published or even publicised. St Teresa has
agreed to hand over £40 billion to get out of the EU, but not tell
anyone – particularly the voters.

(I
was watching the BBC’s flagship mid-day politics programme, Daily
Politics, when the guest (who happened to be a female MP, whose name
I either didn’t get or have forgotten) chirped up with the
dichotomy of all dichotomies. MP for a staunchly Brexiting
constituency, she explained how she now was a Brexit supporter who
just wants a good deal for Britain. She almost let slip the old
“will of the people” clap-trap, but managed to stop just short.
At present, there seems to be no appetite to re-run the Brexit
Referendum. Will this state of affairs last forever? Probably,
unless dishonest MP (like the one above) grow some cajones
(figuratively speaking for the lady MP). Political suicide, but I
would love some MP (perhaps one with a terminal disease) to simply
state the obvious. The voters are stupid. The voters didn’t know
what they were doing. The voters are basically thick as dog-shit and
were peddled a load of dog-shit by dog-shit loving Brexiteers who
don’t give a monkey’s rats ass about the voters and just want to
carry on regardless. That would be refreshing.)

And
now we find that for the first time in 800 years the Irish have
grabbed the pussy of the UK and are not going to let go! They have a
veto on any eventual agreement. They want to ensure seamless
commerce between Eire and NI. The UK government is in hock to the
DUP, and they will never, never, never (apologies to the late Ian
Paisley) agree to anything that even appears to join NI with Eire.
Solution in sight? Never.

Partying
BA crews “knackered” on job

I
saved the best for last.

I
must declare an interest here. Some of my family used to do long
haul flights (not BA) and from the stories they tell this article is
just about spot on.

BA
bosses have reprimanded staff for unacceptable behaviour at hotels
during long-haul trips. The staff have been having raucous parties
an drinking heavily.

Down
in Joburgh, Las Vegas, Bangkok and Singapore the parties have gotten
out of hand. With more young crew on the long-hauls it more like
TOWIE (The only way is Essex) than the old British Airways way.

A
BA source said that crews are packing a lot in during their 24 hours
down time. They sleep, drink, go on safaris (when in Johannesburg)
and when they get back on the flight they are knackered.

BA
cabin crew and pilots are banned from drinking alcohol for eight
hours before reporting for duty and are supposed to drink only in
moderation 24 hours beforehand

Monday, November 27, 2017

After demolishing the Patriots in Foxborough in week one and smashing the high-flying Eagles (pun intended), we now find that the hapless Chiefs can beat no one – not even the struggling Giants or Bills.

What is going on?

I’m afraid Alex Smith is going on – or not going on as it happens. I blog every season that it’s a quarter-back league and if your QB goes well then you go well. When we beat the Pats, he was great. When we beat the Eagles he was great. After that it has been all down hill.

Is it all his fault?

No, of course not. But he must take the major share of the blame. And now as we sit at 6-5 both the Charges 5-6 and the Raiders 5-6 are right on our tail. We play them both in the next few weeks. Lose and play-offs are a distant memory. Win and a poor post season run is still inevitable.

Let’s get the blame game out of the way. A team's success is not all on the QB’s. Other parts must function as well.

Defence is poor. The last two games against inferior opponents have disguised this, bit it is nevertheless apparent. The D-line can create no pressure. The LB’s are a shadow of what they were supposed to be. The Show-Boater-in Chief, Marcus Peters, has been found out – he’s just an average corner back. The rest of the secondary is pathetic. (So pathetic that the Chiefs have signed Darrell Revis, whose fall from NFL grace has been spectacular, to try to shore the secondary up.)

Still they played well enough to beat both the Giants and the Bills.

The offence is beyond poor. Notwithstanding Alex’s failures, the O-line (which should have been one of the team’s strengths) had gone from average to quite poor in a very short time. After a spectacular start, Kareem Hunt has gone from Rookie of the Year candidate to a low draft pick with limited upside. The receiving corps is very poor. Losing Chris Conley to injury has exposed just how poor these receivers are. Tyreek Hill is not really a receiver, though he made some big plays early on. He’s very fast, but he’s also a very small target, so if he doesn’t beat you for speed, Alex can not throw him the ball. There are no other receivers - except for the over-rated Travis Kelce.

Except for the find of the season, Harrison Butker, special teams have been disappointing. They used to be relied upon to produce some touch-downs every other game. They are not contributing.

What do the experts say?

"So what blueprint did the Steelers set? A passive one. Instead of attacking Smith and Co., they stayed back in soft zone coverage. They kept everything in front of them and rallied to the ball. It was a simple, but brilliant, approach."

From Sports Illustrated: “The gadgets and gimmicks that comprise Andy Reid’s offense, the tools they had used to light up the Patriots in Foxboro on opening night, suddenly stopped working. The misdirection that had given opponents fits, with ploys like speedy Tyreek Hill racing one way and the ball optioning back another, became null. If defenders don’t match up and follow offensive players, then those gadgets and misdirections are less effective. Instead of following Hill (or any Chiefs player) and becoming out-leveraged pawns against Reid’s designs, defenders now guard an area of the field, forcing Reid to play to them.”

The solution? “What the Chiefs must do in the here and now is punish defenses for playing zone. You do that by going for big plays. Re-establishing a sustainable ground and screen game with rookie running back Kareem Hunt is important, sure, but the threat of steady, sustained drives is not what worries defensive coordinators—especially coordinators who are playing zone. Big plays worry them. And it’s that worry that will drag defensive play-callers away from soft zones, giving Kansas City’s foundational misdirection and gadgetry a chance to start working again.

You beat zones by attacking them vertically. Instead of aligning Hill and all-world tight end Travis Kelce all over the formation and finding creative ways to get them the ball, align those two together on the same side and run them downfield against the same zone defender. In football parlance, that’s called sending “two through a zone.” It forces zone defenders to make either-or decisions.

So yes, there’s a blueprint. How do the Chiefs respond? Some are calling for first-round rookie quarterback Patrick Mahomes to take over. But the only reason Reid would bench Smith is if the head coach truly believed that those gadgets and misdirection concepts can never work again. Because if Reid went with the more talented but inexperienced Mahomes, he’d have to throw out much of those concepts, along with many of his multi-progression designs. At Texas Tech, Mahomes played in a spread offense, which, notably, he ran with very little discipline. Raw sandlot play-making prowess works in college, but it does not transfer to the NFL—not as a quarterback’s foundation, anyway. It will take at least an off-season (and probably more) for Mahomes to develop the awareness and discipline to run a full-fledged NFL offense, particularly one as comprehensive as Reid’s.”

Wait a minute! What has Andy Reid been doing? If Sports Illustrated are right, should he not have seen this! Very soon the spotlight is going to turn to the coach and he better have some better comments than, “we have to play better”.

The calls for Patrick Mahomes are becoming vociferous. All the good reasons from Sports Illustrated as to why he can’t play pale into insignificance if the Chiefs can’t win with what they have.

it’s difficult not to feel some sympathy for Smith. Teams have got his number and the coaches have either not seen this or have not schemed better ways to get the job done.

At the bottom line it’s still a QB league. This season is probably already over. Time for Alex to slip gracefully into retirement (or seek a new challenge) and let youth have it’s chance. Don’t forget Mahomes has been the back-up all season. He must know the offence by now.

Saturday, November 18, 2017

a figure of
speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction
(e.g. faith unfaithful kept him falsely true ).

Yes I know,
Zimbabwe, and the current political crisis there, appears to have no
relationship or connection to Brexit. Wrong.

In my series, True
Brit, I will examine the commonly held myths about the British and
how these false myths affect almost every aspect of our lives in the
early 21st century.

Whilst it is easy to
hypothesise about how Brexit happened, one thing is clear. The
Brexit wing of the Conservative party has long held the belief that
the UK remains, for practical purposes, in the pre-colonial past and
therefore punches far higher in the world influence league than it
deserves.

This is not entirely
without justification. Don’t forget, the UK has a permanent seat
on the UN Security Council, the UK is one of the world’s
acknowledged nuclear powers and, crucially, today’s UK is the
inheritor of “the sun never sets on the British Empire”.

Hence, the political
situation in Zimbabwe has dominated news in the UK for the last few
days. Memories of the Rhodesian UDI are still fresh in the minds of
the majority of Conservative MP’s. And, the taste it leaves in
their mouths is not a pleasant one. Outwardly half-accepting of
Robert Mugabe, they have spent most of their political lives
disparaging his regime – not without justification, but also
revealing a deep-seated hostility to anyone with the temerity to
challenge their world view of a Britain still basking in the wartime
glory of Churchillian rhetoric.

The same scenario
applies to Myanmar (Burma). The UK was the colonial power. Now news
that the “Darling of the Media” Aung San Suu Kyi may be at least
partly complicit in the genocide of displaced Rohingya Muslim
minority has shaken the UK Foreign Office (so far as they are capable
of being shaken).

UN Secretary
General Antonio Guterres told the Nobel laureate that hundreds of
thousands of displaced Muslims who had fled to Bangladesh should be
allowed to return to their homes in Myanmar.

"The
Secretary-General highlighted that strengthened efforts to ensure
humanitarian access, safe, dignified, voluntary and sustained
returns, as well as true reconciliation between communities, would be
essential," a UN statement said, summarising comments to Suu
Kyi.

Guterres'
comments came hours before Suu Kyi sat down with US Secretary of
State Rex Tillerson on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in
Manila.

Washington has
been cautious in its statements on the situation in Rakhine, and has
avoided outright criticism of Suu Kyi.

Supporters say
she must navigate a path between outrage abroad and popular feeling
in a majority Buddhist country where most people believe the Rohingya
are interlopers.

At a photo
opportunity at the top of her meeting with Tillerson, Suu Kyi ignored
a journalist who asked if the Rohingya were citizens of Myanmar.

And in Zimbabwe the demise of Robert Mugabe is seen as a justification of the British position. His overthrow is simply another example of True Brit.

In
other news this week: the EU are planning closer co-operation in the
area of defence. This has shaken the Little Englanders to the core.
Nothing serves to enrage them more than what seems to be an attack on
the military. Or, at least on the fantasy of the military. True
Brit demands that the populace sees the Army, the Royal Navy and the
Royal Air Force as the nonpareil of national military might. There
is, of course, little in the way of evidence to support this. (Only
the British could celebrate a defeat (Dunkirk) with so much relish)
The facts are: in WWI (which is the focus of Remembrance Day
celebrations) it was the arrival of the American army which tipped
the balance if favour of the allies, in WWII it was the Russian Army
who defeated Hitler’s Third Reich and since then whilst the UK
Forces have participated in numerous combat operations (Korea, The
Falklands Campaign, Bosnia, Desert Storm) in each case they played a
subordinate role.

If
we then add the Brexit debacle into the mix, things rapidly approach
the unreasonable. No other fiasco exhibits the core of True Brit
like Brexit. It is the core. In fact, Brexit itself is an oxymoron.
Britain is not going to leave the EU – at least not in the sense
that the voters think they voted for. As the Brexit Secretary, David
Davis, tries to spread the gloss on an untenable set of
circumstances, he only highlights the unsolvable nature of the
problems. I particularly liked the comment on the news today that
for the first time in over 700 years the Irish have the UK over a
barrel. Neither the Conservative and Unionist Party nor the Irish
government will countenance a hard border between Eire and Northern
Ireland. The EU will not countenance no border at all. The whole
thing rhymes with clucking bell.

Friday, November 17, 2017

I’m not really a
betting man, but I did invest £50 in Sky Bet with the idea that I
would back the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl in 2018.

After five weeks of
wins they odds were not good. With the tribe sitting on top of the
AFC West, my investment was just waiting for the odds to improve to
climb on-board the Chiefs steamroller. Of course, Mr Dismay was not
long in arriving.

Starting with the loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers
(who else), it became obvious that the Chiefs could not stop the run.
Like all good football teams the Steelers simply kept running the
ball until they were stopped. This never happened.

Half-ignoring the
annoying loss to the Raiders (though once again the run game was
instrumental in the debacle) against the Cowboys again the defense
could not prevent simple running plays. “Smash-mouth football”
had returned and it was here to stay.

So, what has
happened? From my lofty position it just appears we are not good
enough. Chris Jones, Bennie Logan, and Allen Bailey can not occupy
their opposite numbers for long enough for the inside line-backers to
make plays Sadly, Derrick Johnson and Reggie Ragland are either not
good enough or so out of form they can’t tackle anyone inside.
Result? Teams run with impunity against the Chiefs. They control
the clock. Their O-line relishes firing out and creating holes that
you or I could run through.

What’s to be done?
It appears we have few options. The problem is up-front and inside.
There are no available replacements waiting for their chance.

This week against
the lowly Giants the short-comings may well be masked. The Chiefs
will win and probably win big. If they do, all will be forgiven –
or at least the short-comings will continue to be disguised.

(I am so much of a
non-betting man that I foolishly took my £50 and bet it – by
mistake – on the Giants to win at 7-2. I thought I was getting 7-2
on the Chiefs – fortunately I manage to bail out and preserve my
stake!)

However, the return
to the glory days of 65 TPT seem to have receded into the Super Bowl
mists of time.

(For non-Chiefs fans
65 TPT was the play called by Hank Stram against the vaunted
Minnesota Purple-People-Eaters defense which won Super Bowl IV. It
was a running play and the Vikings could not stop it. No wonder Hank
was so excited – like me he realised that if the Vikings could not
stop a simple running play then they could not possibly win!)